Reversible degradation of ohmic contacts on p-GaN for application in high-brightness LEDs

Abstract—This paper analyzes the high-temperature long-term stability of ohmic contacts on p-type gallium nitride (p-GaN). The contributions of the ohmic contacts and semiconductor material degradation are separated by adopting the transmission line method (TLM). Before stress, the current–voltage (I–V ) curves measured at the pads of the TLMs showed a linear shape, indicating a good ohmic behavior of the contacts. Thermal treatment at 250 ◦C was found to induce the worsening of the electrical characteristics of the contacts: identified degradation modes consist of a shift of the I–V curves toward higher voltages and strong nonlinearity of the characteristics around zero. This paper shows that the high-temperature instabilities of ohmic contacts on p-GaN are related to the interaction between the device surface and the plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition SiN passivation layer. Hydrogen contained in the passivation layer is supposed to play an important role in the degradation process: the interaction with the acceptor dopant at the metal/semiconductor interface induces the decrease of the effective acceptor concentration. As a consequence, both the ohmic contact characteristics and the semiconductor sheet resistance are worsened.